By Jessica McGovern

"The worst thing about being homeless isn’t the cold, or the hunger, or the shame. It’s the abject loneliness. These people are alone and they’re lonely."

David Todd has been running Edinburgh’s Grassmarket Mission homeless centre at Kirk House for almost six years now, and knows the name of almost every one of the 120 people who pass through the doors each week.

“You’ll never ‘solve’ the homeless situation,” he says. “There always have been, and always will be, people who chose to drop out of society and out of the system. They either have a mental illness, they’re depressed, they’ve come out of care, or they have a rough home life, and they just don’t want to engage.”

According to Edinburgh Council, there were almost 6,000 registered homeless in Edinburgh last year but, Todd says, only 2,000 houses available. That’s 4,000 people who don’t have a secure roof over their heads; sleeping in shelters, hostels, temporary B&B accommodation, or on friends’ floors.

James Bjorkly has been there. At just 37 his life story is alien to most people who grew up in a stable home. After living in care as a child, he was adopted and taken to the U.S. where he left home to travel with the fairground shows.

Twenty years on, after meeting a woman who gave him four children and then left, his green card expired and he was deported, leaving his children with his father, and returning with nothing. Not knowing of any shelters, he found himself on the street.

“It was horrible,” he says. “I ended up in Princes Street Gardens, on the stage, in winter… I didn’t ask for somewhere to stay because I was too scared to talk to the other homeless people, and I was embarrassed to be on the street.”

Bjorkly says; “I couldn’t beg. I just couldn’t ask people I don’t know for money. I spent the days walking around town, or in the library, reading the books or emailing my father.”

Eventually, he found the Grassmarket Mission, moved into a hostel, signed onto benefits, and began to volunteer at Kirk House, taking the cookery and woodwork courses Todd offers there.

He found out eight months ago that he had spinal cancer, and two months later that his brother, estranged since he had left the country, had committed suicide. He can’t get a job due to the illness, “because some days I can’t get out of bed, the pain is so bad,” he says.

But the volunteer work at the Grassmarket Mission has kept him going and Todd says this is the most important thing that they offer.

“Most people have a frame - like a tent frame - that you hang your life on, and that gives it shape and meaning. If you don’t have anything to prop your life up, then it just collapses,” Todd says. “I’ve found that even giving these guys just one day a week is enough to give them something to build a life on.”

Soon after their doors open for lunch, the place is packed with people eating, chatting, playing cards and sneaking sandwiches into their pockets. Not all who come for a meal are sleeping on the streets but nearly all of them, according to Todd “have experienced, or are at risk of experiencing, a period of homelessness.”

Thomas Williams, 38, says he comes in every so often because “this is the best food in Edinburgh”. He is a victim of Edinburgh’s soaring house prices; after leaving home in his twenties, he moved between various hostels and B&Bs for ten years. Some of them were ok, he says, “but some of them were full of thieves, drug addicts, and alcoholics.”

He explains that when homeless people do eventually get a council flat, there’s no way they can get a job that will pay as much as their benefits, because as soon as they are employed, they have to pay rent.

Todd agrees, but says that paying rent is not the biggest problem; “People who have just come out of care or out of prison don’t know how to put together a life. Everything’s been done for them. They’ve never had to go shopping, or open a bank account, or pay a bill. They need support with those things or they’re at risk of losing their tenancies.”

For those who do, the lack of safety on the streets is an issue, but worse than that, he says, is the feeling of marginalisation, failure, and worthlessness.

“And of course, the loneliness. You’ll see that here, if we’re quiet – every table is filled, but with one person at each table. They’re so used to being alone,” he says.

That’s what Todd is trying to tackle at the Grassmarket Mission. He wants, more than anything, to give the people who come in the door a sense of value. By allowing them to integrate as volunteers he hopes to give them a purpose.

Bjorkly is losing a lot of weight, and in a few years he won’t be able to walk. But every Wednesday and Friday he’s there serving lunch, often looking more cheerful than the students who volunteer alongside him.

“It could have been much worse for me,” he says. “I’ve known people that have been on the street and have been mugged and killed… but now people who come in here and see me helping out think that if I can do this, so can they.”

Todd denies that the majority of people on the streets are begging for drugs. “You just can’t beg enough money to feed a drug habit, simple as that. Maybe at Christmas time, maybe during the festival, but not on a wet Wednesday night in February. Most people just want a few cigarettes, or a can of juice, or even a few sweets.”

He urges; “Don’t treat them as if they don’t exist. It’s not easy, but stop and, if you’re near a shop, ask if there’s anything you can get them.”

The centre’s mission statement is: “To get alongside those who are broken, hurt, lost and vulnerable.” For most of us, it’s easier to throw a few coins, but Todd asks; “Just engage with them as people. They’re human beings, and they really, really are lonely.”

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